Juno - Mission To Jupiter

Launched on August 5th, 2011, Juno began a journey of almost five years to Jupiter.Today, Juno entered a polar orbit to begin its mission to study the largest planet in our Solar System.

The last robotic mission to Jupiter was Galileo which, over a period of 14 years in space and 8 years orbiting Jupiter flew past many of Jupiters moons. In comparison, the Juno mission is planned to last around 20 months and complete 37 orbits of the planet after which it will de-orbit and burn up in Jupiters atmosphere.

As the mission develops over the next few months we'll see some amazing close-up pictures of Jupiters clouds and learn about its structure and discover clues to its formation.

Jupiters Secrets To Be Revealed.

Determine the amount of water in the atmosphere. This will identify which theory of Planetary Formation is more likely.

Measure the properties of Jupiters clouds, temperature and structure of cloud layers.

Juno's Polar orbit will cover all of Jupiter and map its magnetic and gravity fields to give an insight into the planets structure.

Like Earth, Jupiter has a magnetic field but many times stronger. At Jupiters poles we see Aurora produced by high energy particles funneled through its magnetic field.

Over the next few months, Juno’s mission and science teams will perform final testing on the spacecraft’s subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection.